


nothing stopping us

by imagines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluffy Angst, M/M, Set in season 7, late-night conversations, pining shiro, this is so sappy and full of kisses and love and self-indulgent AF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 13:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15864228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: Shiro has a question he's afraid to ask. Keith has nightmares he's afraid to mention. They really, really need to talk. (Sheith Angst WeekDay 7: Nightmares)





	nothing stopping us

It’s as though Shiro had been in two places at once, watching through Black’s eyes at the same time as he loomed snarling over Keith. In the memory, the clone’s shock blends with Shiro’s own. Shiro had already known Keith considered him family—it’s the highest honor he can imagine receiving from someone like Keith. But Keith had said those words like they were a secret, dragging them out of his core and throwing them into the violent light like a desperate offering. He’d flayed himself open, exposing all that raw emotion, forcing himself to say it, in the hope of saving their lives.

_I love you._

Nausea roils Shiro’s stomach every time he thinks of it. Keith doesn’t deserve to have his feelings _extracted_ from him. He should have all the time he wants, room to think about how he wants to phrase things, and the knowledge that he is safe no matter what he does or doesn’t say. Keith hasn’t brought up what happened between them at the clone facility. So there’s no telling what he recalls, and Shiro doesn’t want to pry.

Whatever Keith remembers, he isn’t sleeping well. At their daily strategy meetings with Garrison officials, Shiro doesn’t miss the dark crescents under his eyes. And after a couple of weeks pass with no improvement, Shiro can’t let it go any longer.

He catches Keith after dinner one evening. “Can I talk to you? Won’t take long.”

Keith’s eyebrows crinkle in confusion. “Sure. What’s going on?”

Any other time, Shiro would have gone up to the roof with Keith, but now there are all those Galra ships sitting in the sky. He can’t risk drawing attention. “Let’s go to my room.”

 

As soon as Keith walks into Shiro’s room, he goes straight to the big couch and flops down, sighing happily.

Shiro settles down on the other end of the couch, farther away from Keith than he might normally be, but he’s already about to ask an awkward question. He wants Keith to have plenty of space. “So,” he starts. “I’m sorry for bothering you about this, but I noticed you look really tired lately. I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

Keith shrugs. “I’m not sleeping too great, but it’s no big deal. Just stressed.”

“Makes sense. We’re all under a lot of pressure right now.”

“It’s more like—” Keith’s mouth twists as he thinks. “I think I got used to sleeping in the Black Lion. So I was never alone, you know? She was always hanging out in the back of my mind. And I can still feel her, she’s just…”

“Far away?” Shiro supplies.

“Yeah, exactly. It’s weird, that’s all. Hard to get used to it.”

“If you’re lonely—just, if it would help, would you like to sleep in here?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, of course, Keith. Anything I can do to help.”

“Worth a shot,” Keith says. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping through the night for once.”

 

When night falls, Shiro makes up the couch with fresh sheets while Keith stops by his own room to change for bed. A little bit later, he shuffles into Shiro’s room with damp hair, minty breath, red plaid pajamas, and lion slippers. Shiro’s heart skips a beat. Keith has not looked so vulnerable in years. Keith hasn’t had anywhere to _be_ vulnerable in years.

Keith catches him staring. “What?”

“Nothing. You just look comfortable, that’s all.”

“Well, I _am_ comfortable.” Keith tucks himself into bed on the couch, snuggling under the soft blanket. “Thanks again for this, Shiro.”

“Any time. I mean that.”

“Yeah,” Keith says fondly. “You always do mean it.”

 

In the middle of the night, Shiro’s eyes fly open, anxiety jolting through him. At first he’s not sure what awakened him, until he hears Keith tossing and turning on the couch.

“No,” Keith is mumbling into his pillow. “No, don’t, leave him alone, please don’t— _NO_!” He shoots upright, gasping, the blanket clutched tight in his hands. In the near-darkness, broken only by the faint glow of a nightlight, Shiro would swear Keith’s eyes glint yellow for a moment.

“Keith,” he mumurs.

“Shiro. Fuck. Sorry. I forgot I was—here. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“You okay?”

“Ha. Uh. No. Not really. Guess it’s not any better when I’m not in my own room, but thanks for trying. I can just go, you don’t have to—”

“Keith,” Shiro says again. He rolls out of bed and pads across the floor to the couch, where Keith has one foot already on the floor, ready to bolt. Shiro sits down next to him and puts his arms around Keith’s shoulders. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“I’m not bothered. Please let me try to help you.”

Keith is still tense in Shiro’s grasp. “You already tried. And I’m grateful, but it didn’t work, so I should just—”

“Would you like to come sleep next to me?” It pours out of Shiro in a rush, the only thing he can think of in the moment. He can’t bear the thought of Keith trudging back to his room like this, exhausted, embarrassed, and haunted by a nightmare.

Keith stares at him. “Like in your bed?”

“Yes?”

Instead of answering, Keith drops his eyes to the floor. “Do you want to know what I dream about?”

Shiro nods. If it’ll help Keith, he’ll listen to anything.

“I dream about you,” Keith says. He won’t meet Shiro’s eyes, as if he’s confessing a misdeed. “It’s like…all the what-ifs I wonder about during the day take over when I fall asleep, and my mind tries to fill in the blanks. It won’t stop.”

“The what-ifs?”

“You know…” Keith trails off. Shiro hugs him harder, and it seems to open a locked door within Keith. “What happened when you d—when Zarkon attacked you. If you remember when we fought. Every night I hear you scream, and I—I can’t—” He takes a shivery breath, and Shiro can tell he’s trying not to cry. “I didn’t want to tell you and make you think about all of it.”

“You can ask me,” Shiro says. “If it would help you to know, you can ask me anything.”

Keith lifts his head, looking into Shiro’s eyes for a long moment. “When you…disappeared, what happened?”

Shiro closes his eyes; throws his mind back to that moment. It doesn’t burn him up to remember it anymore. “It felt like electricity,” he says slowly. “All over me. But it pulled me apart, atom by atom, until there was nothing of me left.”

“Did it hurt?”

 _Hurt_ is putting it lightly. It had been an indescribable pain, as the particles that formed his body exploded under the assault. There had been no blood. He had been blown apart into pure elemental matter. Stardust, as it were. “Only for a moment,” Shiro says. “Then I woke up inside Black, and I didn’t feel any pain after that.”

Keith’s eyes are bright with tears, and so beautiful. These questions been lodged inside him like thorns, tormenting him into sleeplessness. Shiro will pull them out one by one if he has to, whatever it takes, until Keith is able to close his eyes without a horror movie playing in his mind.

“Do you remember anything about the fight?” Keith asks.

Shiro knew they would come to this point, but it still feels like a bomb going off in his chest. The things he’d said—and done— “I remember all of it,” he tells Keith. “And I’m sorry, Keith, I’m so—”

“Shiro, wait.” Keith raises one hand and rests the tips of his fingers against Shiro’s lips, quieting him. “I know that you remember it, but it wasn’t _you_. I’m not afraid of you. I was only afraid to lose you.”

Shiro can’t help thinking of his own question. It seems the conversation has led him here, and there may never be another opening more perfect than this. He takes a deep breath. He can do this. “Do you remember—” And then his brain stalls out, because Keith is looking at him with incredible tenderness, and to ask this one question could throw their friendship out of balance forever.

Keith’s hand slides up into Shiro’s hair, petting the strands away from his face. “Ask me,” he says. “Let me help you, too.” As if he knows that both of them are shot through with thorns, and that it will take time to heal every wound.

“What you said to me,” Shiro finally gets out. “When I—when _he_ —gave you that burn.”

Keith tilts his head. “Is that what you’ve been worrying about this whole time?”

“I—what do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you thought you were hiding it. You’ve been moping around the Garrison ever since we got back.”

Shiro sighs. “Yes,” he admits. “That’s what I’ve been worrying about.”

“Well, you don’t need to.” Keith leans forward, resting his forehead against Shiro’s, and oh, he’s so close now. “Shiro, of course I love you.”

Shiro watches as Keith’s tongue darts out, wetting his lips. It’s a lot to deal with. “You make it sound so simple.”

“That’s because it _is_ simple. There’s nothing stopping us—” Keith presses a tiny kiss to Shiro’s temple— “from loving each other—” and another to Shiro’s cheek— “however we want.” Keith pauses with his lips a centimeter away from Shiro’s. “Answer this for me. What do you want?”

“To love you,” Shiro breathes. And it is so easy—Keith _makes_ it so easy—to close the gap and press his mouth to Keith’s. “To have you,” he says. “To keep you.”

Keith is holding him so tightly. “So love me. Have me. Keep me.” He slips Shiro a little bit of tongue, just enough to make Shiro gasp. “And yes, I want to sleep next to you.” He bites his lip. “But if I wake you up again—”

“If you wake me up again,” Shiro says, “I’ll hold you and kiss you and tell you I love you until you aren’t scared anymore.”

Keith’s sweet mouth curls into a new kind of smile that Shiro’s never seen on him before, but he wants to make Keith smile like that every day from now on. “I think I can handle that.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I had to write SOMETHING cute as fuck after six OTHER days of nothing but pain, horror, tragedy, and more pain. :p
> 
> As always, [I'm on tumblr](https://belovedsheith.tumblr.com) and I love talking to people, so come say hello! <3


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